Spring Breakers (2013)

Nothing frustrates me more then a film that could have been great but squanders its potential.  Harmony Korine's latest flic Spring Breakers is one such case, with a premise so audacious and original that the result is that much more frustrating.  What could have been a feature length, girls gone wild version of Breaking Bad instead turns into a fever dream that gets thrown into a high pitch at around the hour mark.

The film stars Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, and Rachel Korine as lifelong friends who want to escape their boring, nothing town for Spring Break in Florida, because as Gomez puts it in a long voice over piece (one of many that populate the film), they have a chance to find themselves.  Now, I understand how travel can transform an individual, but that usually happens on a trip where you plan to experience different cultures (even if it is just to Texas to see how the southern half lives).  I don't believe going to the beach and spending a week drunk, high, and having sex will enlighten you all that much to life, though I imagine it can be a ton of fun.

Lacking the necessary funds to fuel this sort of vacation, three of the girls stick up a local chicken shack with water pistols and a mallet, and are soon on their way to St. Petersburg, Florida, which turns out to be every bit as seedy as they had hoped.  A good chunk of the movie is spent watching the girls party endlessly, doing cocaine, smoking weed, getting drunk, and tempting members of the opposite sex, before their illegal activities are shut down by those killjoys, the 5-0.  Lucky for this quartet, a rapper/gangster named Alien (James Franco) bails them out of jail and takes them under his wing.

This is the kind of film where you are either with the style or not having any of it, and I found Korine's montages to be brilliant in small doses, but overwhelming at 92 minutes.  There's very little character development here; Gomez is the only girl with a backstory, playing the aptly named Faith, a good christian girl who secretly just wants to cut loose and party.  Korine squanders an opportunity to transform Gomez's character from devout Christian to insane partier/gangster, instead letting her exit the film about midway through just before things begin to escalate.

That leaves us with Hudgens, Benson, and Rachel Korine who are all barely defined beyond their obvious psychopathic tendencies.  There is one chilling scene where they recount their stick-up for Gomez, and the glee with which they reenact the events (partially encouraged by the liquor they're imbibing) is both chilling and provides the film with some of its best moments.  But they barely have any arc, going from penis hungry to indulging their new killer instincts by the end.  Hudgens and Benson do have the film's best scene when they are brought back to Franco's pad and turn the tables on him in a most sadistic and surprising way.

The best part about the film, though, is James Franco, who proves he is more capable as a character actor then a straight man.  With cornrows and grilles, Franco's character is one you wish had more screen time, as he is one fascinating dude.  The film's second half is propelled by a rivalry with an old friend (Gucci Mane), which leads to the films grisly ending.  But again, the film offers us a taste of something great and pulls it out of our grasp before too long.

That's the problem with Korine's film overall: there are the seeds of great ideas sprinkled throughout, but his method is annoying, dull, and blunt.  He could have crafted a fascinating look at what it takes to transform four girls from "innocent" college girls into full on gangsters, complete with day-glo ski masks and armed with uzis.  Instead, we get scene after scene of debauchery on the beach, of naked women having beer poured on their breasts, while the score composed by Cliff Martinez and Skrillex blasts away all your senses, leaving you completely numb.  Korine illustrates his point, and then does it again, and again, and again.  More then once the girls call their parents and grandparents and exclaim that they're having a great time, meeting great people, and learning a lot, all while images of excessive partying and drinking are shown.  Korine beats us over the head with his message, and then pummels us into a pulp in the corner until we're left shivering, weeping, and begging for it to stop.